cheap - and commutable to central London - possible?

eltawater

Right then...

I used to work at UCL. I also grew up in South east london (deptford end of new cross) and have family living in Bexleyheath. I've commuted from both locations into UCL, so hopefully I can add some useful person insights...

Avoid living in South London and commuting into Bloomsbury. Woolwich and Plumstead are marginally worse holes than lewisham and peckham. The journey in from south london requires too many changes.

My typical journey into Bloomsbury from New cross consisted of:

1) Utterly rammed train from New Cross Station (there are quite a few train doors with permanent impressions of my face against them)
2) Changing at london bridge, plodding along between platforms to join another rammed train to Charing Cross, avoiding all the people changing to go to the city
3) Get off at Charing cross, join the rammed underground northern line to warren street, take the bus, or walk through six dials and up gower street.

I used to walk it on all but the most wet days Total journey time, 1 hour of being utterly miserable. The return journey isn't much better, except you have to fight through all the tourists instead.

Your best bet is to ideally find somewhere north of Euston preferably, or Kings Cross if you must so that you can avoid the underground by walking in.

South west london is not recommended as then you'll be at the mercy of south west trains and the crush at waterloo, which wasn't fun after 45 minutes from egham.
Going across london after alighting from an overground train should be avoided at all costs.

180K isn't going to get you a huge amount of house unless you leave the capital, at which point you'll be paying through the nose for tickets (how does 16 pounds return for a travelcard sound?).

If you're only going in a few days a week outside of peak hours, this may not be an issue for you and you should consider places further afield with fast links to london (one lecturer commuted from cambridge).

somabc

GDB2222 wrote: »

Oh, and it's a great place, with excellent facilities and very impressive teaching staff.

Yeah its the second best university in London (i work at a rival uni ).
Many of our Academics commute occasionally from Oxford / Cambridge and other assorted Home Counties (North & West London being the most popular if you have the money).

I travel from New Cross to South Ken which is about the same distance as to bloomsbury and eltawater is right on the money the train is always rammed and takes an hour to do train / tube for what 5-6 miles? Not pleasant! I would imagine most of East London would take the same time so I would not look at the South or East unless you must save money. West / Surrey Commuter belt is too pricey, so focus on the North first.

I would say Reading & Luton strike me as two towns with good transport links and (semi)affordable housing.

GABRIELLE

If you are working in 'research' for one of the big institutions in that area you might qualify for temporary accommodation in one of the 'charitable foundations' such as Goodenough College http://www.goodenough.ac.uk/home.html
There are a small number of these places in this vacinity which might prove useful while you decide on a more permanent set-up.

neverdespairgirl

somabc wrote: »

Yeah its the second best university in London (i work at a rival uni ).
.

Oh dear - not Strand Poly, I hope?

zcacmxi

somabc wrote: »

Yeah its the second best university in London (i work at a rival uni ).

Imperial & UCL are both world class. Imperial specialises in Sciences so excels in that area. However, UCL is excellent all round including Sciences, Arts, Laws, etc. This brings diversity to the campus, and makes it a more enjoyable place to be...

Back on topic however, I think using the overground services anywhere in North or South London is only pleasant if you board services further out of London at the start where seats are available.

Boarding a packed Essex/Kent/Herts commuter service once it gets in to Zone 1/2/3 will mean you'll never get a seat in rush hour, and in most cases will barely even squeeze on.

In Kent, the last stations where you'll get are seat are Zone 5 and parts of Zone 4. Further in and forget it!

Strapped

I used to commute into Blackfriars daily from Three Bridges (Crawley). Takes about an hour and the train runs through to Kings Cross I believe. £180k would get you a reasonable sized 3 bed house in Crawley although tbh it's a bit of a chav town! The surrounding areas are nicer but more expensive.

davsidipp

Gingernutmeg wrote: »

Sorry, but I wouldn't recommend Bexleyheath, Welling or Bexley. Bexley council is awful, and the schools are fine if you can get into one of the grammars, absolutely appaling if you can't. Yes, it's a cheap area but it's cheap for a reason. If you *have* to live there then Bexley is nicer, but you pay for it and again you're still having to deal with Bexley council. I'd avoid Welling, the Sidcup side is 'nicer' in terms of houses/crime, but in general it's not a nice place at all. The same goes for Bexleyheath, you've got the same issues with schools and tbh I never found it that nice a place. I also hated the commute into London, it took ages at the best of times and the trains were always either full to bursting or full of drunks. Expensive too, and at 45/50 mins a journey, very long.

Personally I think there are much nicer places to live that are easily commutable to London - we live in Wilts now and it's still only an hour to Paddington from the town we live in, it could take that long from Welling/Bexleyheath. We've got a bigger, cheaper house, a nicer atmosphere generally, a better landlord and at least we aren't trapped in the M25.

ive got to agree i live in new eltham which was really nice 15 years ago but now i find pretty tatty and full of misfits.as for plumstead and the common forget it what a hell hole up and coming ive heard that being said for years still has not changed.as for bexley borough not that nice anymore plenty of crime and some pretty bad neighbourhoods like erith.schools are rubbish im glad my two finished years ago both went to grammar school which had a good reputation then .try some other areas like dartford or greenhithe near bluewater they cannot be any worse.

botchjob

Just to echo others that for that sort of money you should look around the medway towns of north kent. Not a great commute at the moment but due to get better and the area seems comparatively undervalued.

mouche

Gingernutmeg wrote: »

Sorry, but I wouldn't recommend Bexleyheath, Welling or Bexley. Bexley council is awful, and the schools are fine if you can get into one of the grammars, absolutely appaling if you can't. Yes, it's a cheap area but it's cheap for a reason. If you *have* to live there then Bexley is nicer, but you pay for it and again you're still having to deal with Bexley council. I'd avoid Welling, the Sidcup side is 'nicer' in terms of houses/crime, but in general it's not a nice place at all. The same goes for Bexleyheath, you've got the same issues with schools and tbh I never found it that nice a place. I also hated the commute into London, it took ages at the best of times and the trains were always either full to bursting or full of drunks. Expensive too, and at 45/50 mins a journey, very long.

Personally I think there are much nicer places to live that are easily commutable to London - we live in Wilts now and it's still only an hour to Paddington from the town we live in, it could take that long from Welling/Bexleyheath. We've got a bigger, cheaper house, a nicer atmosphere generally, a better landlord and at least we aren't trapped in the M25.

I can't comment on schools in the area since I have no children. I have looked at Ofsted reports for primaries with view to having them in the future and though many are just Satisfactory, some are Good, and a couple are Excellent. Of course, as I said, I don't have children so don't know first-hand.

I've rented in Bexleyheath for a year; had no problems with crime etc. Never had to deal with the council (apart from the library which is quite good) so have no opinion on that. The train from Bexleyheath station to Charing Cross takes 38 minutes and I'm able to get a seat morning and evening everyday. It's a far more comfortable commute than I used to have. Zone 1-5 travelcard costs me £159 a month; if I used Welling station, it would cost approx. £132. I think that's reasonably good value considering what a railcard would cost from places not in the London zones.

Since I'm thinking of buying in the area, your comments worry me. I've never had any trouble there but it would be great if you could tell me why you feel it's a bad place to live?

GDB2222

kunekune wrote: »

This means our maximum budget for a three bedroom house plus study would be £180 ish. A longish commute isn't too bad, as I wouldn't have to do it every day, and probably wouldn't have to do it during rush hour either.

Is there anywhere we could live where this is doable? I don't want to give up the idea without at least checking it out. For family reasons I can't do what a lot of people in my profession do and live the other end of the country and just travel to London for two days a week.

You really need a 4-bed place. For UCL and on that budget, the obvious place to live is outside London, with a train ride into Euston/King's X/St Pancreas, as these are 5/10 mins walk from UCL.

A quick check on Rightmove lists 108 possibly suitable properties. That was with the search criteria:
All of Hertfordshire
4 beds +
Max price £220k, assuming some negotiation is possible.
I saw several properties in Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City, both of which are decent places to bring up a family.

Widening the search to include Bedfordshire adds another 237 properties.